The Random Adventures of Jin and Touya
by Counterproductive Squirrels
Summary: Jin and Touya have somehow acquired a house in the Ningenkai. Why? Because they can. Even if they can’t. They do random things.


The Random Adventures of Jin and Touya 

by Two Counterproductive Squirrels 

_Chapter the First:_

In which our heroes move in.

Let us imagine a house. It is a normal house, as far as houses go. It only extends into three dimensions, for one thing, which just goes to show what can pass for normal in the Ningenkai. It has a cheerful little garden, bright curtains in the windows, a whitewashed picket fence, and two demons lying on the front lawn. Actually, that last part isn't normal at all.

"And that one looks like... a frog!"

"Mmm."

"No, wait, now it's a rabbit. Or a mutant frog."

"Mmhmm."

"And that one looks like the color red!"

"Mmm... wait, what?" The blue-haired man turned to face his companion, confused.

His elf-eared friend grinned. "Just checking to see if ye were listening." His eyes turned back to the clouds. "Now that one looks like a dragon..."

Touya groaned. "Jin, how long are you going to keep doing this?"

"Until Yuusuke and the others get here."

Touya removed his hands from behind his head and sat up. "Knowing Yuusuke, that could be sometime tomorrow."

"Or maybe in the next few seconds."

They waited, and after thirty seconds Touya said, "I don't think so."

Of course, fate decided to prove Touya wrong, as at that moment a van came screeching into their driveway. Kurama emerged, unsteadily, from the passenger seat. "Note to self: don't let Yuusuke drive," he muttered to himself.

Meanwhile, Kuwabara popped out of the back. "That was awesome! Especially that part where you swerved around a corner and missed the side of the building by like five centimeters!"

Yuusuke's head poked out of the window on the driver's side. "What? Oh, I was just flipping off this guy on the sidewalk, except I forgot to look where I was going, so I had to -- "

Touya waved a hand. "Please, spare us the details."

Yuusuke glanced over and, as if seeing them for the first time, waved to the two demons on the lawn. "Hey guys!" he said cheerfully, getting out of the car. "All the stuff's in the back, except for the frozen food, which Hiei should be bringing over any second now." And indeed, mere seconds later the small fire demon appeared, a plastic shopping bag in each hand. He was scowling furiously.

"How'd you ever rope him into helping?" Touya quietly asked Kurama, as they watched the others unload the back of the van.

Kurama sighed. "We promised him some of that gourmet mint ice cream that's so hard to find."

"Ah, of course."

"Hey, guys!" They looked over to see Kuwabara glaring at them, a large cardboard box in his arms. Behind him Jin and Yuusuke seemed to be having a contest as to who could hold the most boxes. "The least you could do is help a bit, huh?"

"Hiei's not helping either," Kurama teased gently.

Kuwabara glanced at Hiei, who was still standing by a wall glowering at everyone, and shrugged. "Not really worth it."

"He can hold the door open!" put in Yuusuke, wobbling past Kuwabara with far too many boxes stacked up in his arms.

"Hiei, why don't you put the food into the refrigerator?" suggested Touya before tempers could be raised. "I'm pretty sure it's plugged in." Hiei grunted noncommittally and disappeared, front door swinging behind him.

"You guys sure picked a house out in the boonies," Yuusuke grunted, boxes swaying as he walked. "I swear it took us like an hour to get here."

The boxes hid his face, but everyone could tell that Jin was grinning. "Yup!" he said. "We picked this house just to annoy you."

Touya shook his head. "As much as Jin would like to think that's true, it's mostly because we didn't want too many nosy neighbors finding out we're demons."

"Unless you count birds and stuff as neighbors, I don't think you're going to have that problem here," commented Yuusuke, glancing around the countryside that surrounded the house.

"Could I get a little help here?" called Kuwabara, who was trying to pry open the door with one foot.

"Oh! Of course." Kurama went over and held the door open for him. "Now you can't complain I'm not helping," he added with a twinkle in his eye. Kuwabara just grumbled something that sounded uncomplimentary and went inside.

Hiei was already in the kitchen, sitting on top of the refrigerator with a carton of ice cream and a spoon. He merely gave a distracted glare at Kuwabara when he came in, as if he didn't want his moment with the ice cream interrupted, and went back to eating. "You're friendly today," Kuwabara muttered, and set his box on the ground.

Of course, Jin chose that moment to come in and nearly trip over him. "Whoopsy-daisy!" he shouted in surprise, boxes tumbling out of his arms. The two redheads barely managed to catch all the boxes before they hit the ground, save for one that landed with an ominous crunch.

Kuwabara stared at the box apprehensively. "...What was in there?" he asked cautiously.

"I dunno, it was Touya's stuff," Jin replied, looking equally scared.

Yuusuke stumbled in, oblivious, and set his boxes heavily in a stack on top of the box with Touya's things, not noticing the crunches as he did so. "Geez, how much stuff did you guys bring anyway?" he said to no one in particular, and headed back out to the van.

Kuwabara and Jin looked at each other, and through some sort of mutual telepathy decided that, for future reference, they had no idea what had happened.

Kurama and Touya strolled in, carrying several small bags, and looking particularly smug - probably because they had managed to avoid any heavy lifting, never mind the fact that they would have had no trouble with it. They set the bags down on the floor and Touya held the door open as Yuusuke staggered in with another stack of boxes.

"I think that's the last of them," he said, putting them down on the floor and wiping his brow exaggeratedly. "Well, I guess we'll be seeing you guys later!" He quickly turned around and made to go out the door, but Jin grabbed the back of his shirt and waggled one finger at him.

"Not so fast there, buster boy!" he admonished cheerfully. "You promised to help us set everything up!"

Yuusuke sagged in faux disappointment. "Aww, I was hoping you would forget about that..."

"I wouldn't forget! I wrote it on me hand!" Jin held up his left hand and pointed to it.

Yuusuke peered at the writing scribbled in pink pen. "Yuusuyu promfised to sep up meat," he read out slowly.

"What?" Jin looked at his hand in bewilderment. "Oh, nah, that's not a yu, that's a ke! And that kanji's supposed to be house, not meat..."

Yuusuke grabbed Jin's hand and looked at it again. "Huh! Yeah, you're right. Man, you have horrible handwriting, Jin..."

"Let me see!" Kuwabara shoved Yuusuke out of the way and grabbed Jin's hand. "Huh, looks legible to me..."

"That's 'cause your handwriting's just as bad," countered Yuusuke.

"Will you two quit abusing Jin's poor hand and get to work?" Touya ground out irritably.

Yuusuke waved a hand in appeasement. "Fine, fine, keep your shirt on."

"Aye, it's not a pretty sight underneath," put in Jin, who looked like he was going to say something more until he was hit in the head with a roll of packing tape. He glanced around for the perpetrator, but Touya was looking innocently in the other direction.

"Hypocrite." Touya was jabbed harshly in the back, and he nearly jumped out of his skin to see Hiei standing right next to him. "The sooner we get to work, the sooner we get out of here."

As Touya gaped and subsequently tried to cover his surprise at Hiei's sudden appearance, Kurama said with a small smile, "I'm going to agree with Hiei's logic on this one. Yuusuke, open that box labeled 'books'..."

"Hey, who put you in charge?" asked Yuusuke, nevertheless doing as he was told.

"I did," Kurama replied lightly, bending down by a box labeled 'Jin's rock collection'.

"No wait, don't touch tha'!" said Jin suddenly, rushing to his side and grabbing the box protectively. "You'll mess it up!"

Kuwabara glanced at the writing on the side. "Whoa, Jin, you collect rocks?"

"He has as long as I've known him," said Touya, prying a stereo out from its encasing styrofoam.

He pointed to a large rock he could see over the edge of the box. "So what kinda species or whatever is that rock? Is it granite or something?"

"One, rocks do not have species," said Hiei, not looking up from where he was putting a vase of flowers on a table in a surprisingly attractive arrangement. "And two, granite looks nothing like that."

"So what is it?" continued Kuwabara, ignoring Hiei.

Jin blinked. "It's a blueish-gray rock that's all smooth-like," he said slowly.

Kuwabara blinked as well. "You mean you don't know?"

Jin shook his head gleefully. "Well, you know feng shui? I put the rocks around me room to make the air flow right."

"You could just _make_ the air flow right with your powers."

"Aye, but this way I get to be lazy."

By now, Yuusuke was standing in the middle of a veritable mountain of books, which looked like they could not all have possibly fitted into the box they had come out of. "Um, guys? Where's a bookcase?"

Touya shrugged. "I don't know. We weren't here when the movers brought the furniture in."

Yuusuke blinked, as if he wanted to join the club with Jin and Kuwabara. "You mean you just let some random guys come in your house alone? How did you know they wouldn't steal anything?"

"Oh, we'd know if they did," said Touya cryptically, making Yuusuke decide he didn't want to ask.

Kurama at that moment surprised them all by returning from the kitchen, when none of them had noticed he'd even gone. "I didn't know you drank coffee," he remarked randomly, setting down an empty cardboard box he'd carried with him.

Touya looked confused. "What's coffee?"

"Is it booze?" added Jin a bit too eagerly.

Kurama looked equally confused. "But you've got a coffee maker..."

Touya was blank for a moment, then realization suddenly dawned on him. "Oh, we just bought a lot of those 'kitchen appliances' so it'd look like a real kitchen," he explained, then added somewhat guiltily, "We wanted to see what they did."

"So does it make booze?" asked Jin, oblivious.

Kurama sighed. "No, coffee is a stimulant, like tea. Alcohol is a depressant."

"Someone paid attention in class," Yuusuke muttered, glaring around the room as if that would make a bookshelf appear.

Touya now looked somewhat panicked. "Jin. Do not ever drink coffee."

Kurama merely looked amused. "Note to self: spike Jin's drink with caffeine."

Touya gave the fox a suspicious look. "You've been acting awfully strange since you got here."

"Youko's feeling playful today," Kurama said by way of explanation. Touya made a sound something like "nrgh" and backed away surreptitiously.

Kuwabara sighed abruptly. "Look Urameshi," he said to the now dangerous-looking Yuusuke. "I'll find the stupid bookshelf, you just keep unpacking."

"What, you think I'm incompetent when it comes to finding furniture?"

"No, you just look like you're about to set the furniture on fire is all."

"Yuusuke, go open another box," Kurama sighed, not deigning to look in their direction. With one last glare at each of them, Yuusuke stalked over to the remaining boxes and seemed to immediately forget that he was irritated.

About half an hour passed, during which Kuwabara found the bookshelf, Touya and Jin claimed their bedrooms, and Hiei got wrapped up in some bedsheets. Soon Yuusuke had emptied the last box, and looked around the room. "Hey guys? Did you remember to pack your clothes?" he asked, looking mystified.

Jin and Touya looked at each other, then back at Yuusuke. "We're wearing our clothes," said Touya.

Yuusuke's brain slowly processed this, and then he gawked. "Are you trying to tell me you only own one set of clothes?"

"We only have one body at a time, ye know," said Jin, as if that explained everything.

"But they'd get all gross after like a month or so!" he protested, Kurama cringing and trying to force himself not to wonder how often Yuusuke bathed.

"Unless it rains," put in Jin.

"We're not complete savages," Touya interrupted. "We _do_ wash our clothes."

"Well, maybe _you_ do," Jin retorted impishly.

Touya put a hand to his forehead. "Jin, I've _seen_ you washing your clothes, now stop being an idiot."

"But what do you wear then?" Yuusuke paused, then shook his head. "Never mind, I don't want know."

"But we don't --"

"I'm not listening, lalala!" Yuusuke sang over Jin's protests, sticking his fingers into his ears and fleeing into the kitchen for reasons unknown.

Jin blinked. "What's his problem?"

Kuwabara shrugged. "Who knows, it's Yuusuke."

"I fear he may have had a drink or two before we drove here," Kurama mused, eyes narrowed, and followed Yuusuke with an annoyed look on his face.

"Whee, it's going to be an interrogation!" Jin shouted gleefully, and nearly shot off after them to watch, but Touya grabbed him by the ear and held him back. "Aw, ye be having no fun at all," he said dejectedly, and wandered off with a box to his room. Touya rolled his eyes and followed suit.

Now only Kuwabara and Hiei were left in the room that could possibly be called the living room. Kuwabara eyed Hiei warily, while the small fire demon seemed completely absorbed with whatever he was doing with the two shinobi's CD collection. Kuwabara wandered over in curiosity and glanced over his shoulder. "Whatcha doin'?"

Hiei glared back at him. "Arranging their music discs. What does it look like?"

Kuwabara glanced over the titles, and raised his eyebrows. "In alphabetical order? I think Kurama's rubbing off on you."

Hiei scowled. "And how exactly _should_ I organize them?"

"I dunno, just stick 'em in the CD tower."

Hiei, not understanding the terminology and determined not to show it, shoved a stack of CDs into Kuwabara's startled grasp. "Then if you're such an expert with organizing such things, then _you_ take care of it," he said, stalking off to do something else. Kuwabara watched him glare at a lampshade, half-expecting it to spontaneously combust, then shrugged. _He's the one choosing to be all grumpy,_ he thought to himself, and began shoving CDs into their places.

Suddenly they heard an anguished shout from what Touya had designated as his room. The others hurried in (except for Hiei, who didn't care because he was too busy growling at a tangled lamp cord) to find Touya standing stricken over an opened box.

"What is it, Touya?" said Kurama gently.

Touya whipped around, startled, and tried to block their view of whatever was inside the box. "Uh, no! Nothing's wrong! Got a papercut is all!"

Yuusuke managed to get a look between Touya's frantically waving arms. "Are those porcelain figurines?"

"What? Of course not! Go away!" he shouted as he redoubled his efforts.

"Some of them are broken," Yuusuke continued, hand darting in to pick one up.

"I know!" he shouted with rage, then sagged. "Damn tissues, I told Jin they wouldn't work..."

"This one's got some lady walking a dog..."

"You can always get some new ones," said Kurama carefully, never having understood the attachment some people got to material items.

"Is this supposed to be an angel? She looked like she just swallowed a lemon."

"But they discontinued half of these fifty years ago!" Touya groaned, and sank down onto his mattress.

"And why is this pig wearing a top hat?"

"Yuusuke, kindly shut up, as I'm having a crisis here," Touya interrupted wearily.

Yuusuke looked up. "Why do you have porcelain figurines, anyway?"

"Why not?" Kurama began, in one of his rare moments of kindness, trying to salvage the other demon's dignity.

But Touya seemed determined to dig his hole deeper. "Some of them have sentimental value! Um, I mean, they'll gain value over the years. You know, appreciate interest. One day they'll be worth millions." His eyes narrowed. "You owe me that money, Yuusuke. You're the one who drove that car."

Kuwabara, now also digging through the box, held up a figure that still had a price tag on the bottom. "This one only cost 200 yen! If it gains value, it's only going to be because of inflation."

Kurama, seemingly surprised that Kuwabara understood the concept of inflation, nodded his head slightly. "I have to agree, Touya, I find it very unlikely that any of these will become collector's items."

But Jin shook his head. "Aye, you'd think so, but Touya got a couple appraised, and sure enough that wee piggy there was worth 10,000 yen! Wheeoo, but you coulda knocked me over with a feather!"

As one man, the three spirit detectives present looked from the dejected form of Touya to the cardboard box at his side. "But that's only like a couple video games," said Yuusuke casually. This didn't seem to help.

Touya dug through the box in despair. "Look at these! Half of these are broken! I'll never be able to glue them back together!"

"What are you lot babbling about?" came Hiei's voice from the doorway. He had somehow acquired one of the porcelain figures without them noticing, but what was most surprising was that this particular one used to be noticeably broken. Now it seemed almost as good as new, save for a few faint lines. "They're easily repairable."

If he hadn't been a demon, Touya would have been looking at Hiei with reverence and awe. "You...you can fix them?" he managed to get out.

"It's only a matter of melting it slightly, putting it back together, and waiting for it to cool," he said lazily, not seeming very interested. He tossed the figure to Touya, who found it to be very hot. "Just don't cool it too fast, or it'll crystalize," he added.

Touya examined the now-whole poodle figurine. The areas around the breaks were somewhat blurred, but otherwise it was fine. "Would you be willing to do the rest?" he asked, his usual cool manner back again.

"How much would you be willing to pay me?" Hiei returned, eyebrow raised.

Touya looked pointedly at the others in the room. "If you'd excuse us for a moment," he said brusquely, and shooed them out into the hall. The door shut behind them. A few minutes later, as the others were cautiously finishing up, they came out of the room, both with smug smirks that made Kuwabara and Yuusuke not want to know what transaction had just occurred.

As it turned out, Touya's estimate was exaggerated, for only the figurines on the top were broken. It only took Hiei about ten minutes to repair them, after which he disappeared out back with a look that might even have unsettled Kurama.

"Where's he off to?" Yuusuke murmured as Jin was saying something about a human kiln.

Having caught the quiet comment, Kurama shrugged. "Out to let off some steam, I expect," he said, equally hushed, as if Hiei was still in the room. "I suppose all this menial work has gotten to him."

"It's nearly gotten to me," Yuusuke muttered, and hammered a nail into the wall with what turned out to be a little to much force.

Touya put a hand to his forehead. "Please don't destroy my house, we just got it."

Eventually everybody was lounging across various items of furniture, Yuusuke tapping his fingers restlessly against a table. Hiei slid in through the back door, looking noticeably more restrained. "If anyone wants venison, there's some out back," he said carelessly, and immediately claimed his spot in a window.

Yuusuke blinked. "Huh. Never took him for a hunter."

"He has to eat something," said Kurama, smiling.

Yuusuke scoffed. "Yeah, when we're not indulging his sweet tooth."

Kuwabara slapped his forehead with one hand as Hiei's back stiffened. "Now he's done it," he said to himself, having experienced this sort of thing first hand.

Before anyone could so much as take in a breath, Hiei's window was empty and two black-haired demons were wrestling in the middle of the floor. A miss-thrown punch shattered a lamp, and Touya shouted over the din of grunts and shouts, "If you're going to fight, take it outside!"

The two seemingly obeyed, as there was a flicker and suddenly they were out back, doing what they did best. The others trailed outside, either to cheer on the participants or merely look on bemusedly. You get to choose who did what. Just 'cause we're nice like that.

Half an hour later, two exhausted but now relaxed demons lay panting on the lawn, while Jin and Kuwabara set up an impromptu barbecue. Touya and Kurama sat on the grass, sipping lemonade that had come from who-knows-where. "Well, it could be worse," said Kurama placatingly to the ice demon.

The other closed his eyes. "Do I want to know how?"

Kurama's smile widened to an all-out grin. "You could've asked Chuu and the others for help." Touya groaned as he imagined what could have transpired had he invited the drunken demon, two egomaniacs, and a mischievous child into his house, and Kurama just laughed merrily.

A/N: ...Hehe, Yuusuke's so much fun to write.

Sorry it took so long to get this out, but, um...hang on... dashes off. sounds of typing can be heard

searching excusedatabase.exe

error: no valid entryyyy.

erroo0r? s7543m 0verloaD "mr jelly"

goto "please re-insert cabbage and reboot nscript !end!

...Great, you broke my excuse computer. This is all your fault.


End file.
